1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to packet based telecommunications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications and more particularly, to controlling packet based telecommunications networks for multiparty calls such as VoIP conference calls.
2. Background Description
Since Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communications use a connectionless protocol, as long as Quality of Service (QoS) is not a factor, any number of calls may be carried over a packet based network link. However, because bandwidth is not unlimited, QoS is almost always a consideration. Limited bandwidth has required constraining link traffic to insure high QoS. In particular, in a connectionless protocol telecommunications system conducting too many calls over a broadband link can cause gaps, delays and dropped calls. Consequently, packet networks restrict the number of active calls to protect voice traffic from the negative effects of other voice traffic and to prevent excess voice traffic.
Currently, for example, Call Admission Control (CAC) is used in packet based telecommunications, such as VoIP, to control and ensure adequate bandwidth for the authorized communications flows. Typically, CAC policies are implemented to ensure that calls cannot setup whenever current traffic is consuming enough of the available broadband or wide area network (WAN) bandwidth to make it impossible to support added flow without negatively affecting the QoS for existing voice traffic.
Typically, these CAC policies treat all calls the same. Conference calls that may originate from multiple network endpoints, traverse the Internet, for example, connecting to another, remote network branch with multiple participating network endpoints. Assigning each participant as an individual call is inefficient and may, very likely and very quickly, consume most or all available resources. One party, e.g., initiating the conference, cannot select the media processor for the conference call with other participants remote to the originator. Further, typical state of the art call management servers that provide conference services to a large number of locations are constrained by CAC policies for any location remote to the single selected media processor. This frequently results in otherwise available WAN link bandwidth, e.g., in branches other than the branch where the selected media processor resides, being unused and unusable.
Thus, there is a need for packet telecommunications networks that improve bandwidth usage on WAN links for optimal network capacity consumption to expand the number of allowable conference calls and call participants for a given WAN link bandwidth.